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Spanish Inquisition
The Spanish Inquisition was an ecclesiastical tribunal established in 1478 by Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the medieval inquisition, which was under papal control, with an institution that would be under the direct control of the Spanish monarchy. In the episode "Sons of Belial", Nicholas de Brabant and LaCroix are betrayed to the Inquisition and arrested while they sleep. Taken to prison, they find themselves in a dungeon with two other men: Arío is believed to be possessed; but, although Sanchez is accused of heresy, his real offence is simply that he has property that the Catholic Church wants, and he refuses to give it to them. Nick and LaCroix are accused of being in league with the Devil. At first they are scornful of the charges; but, when the Inquisitor comes to fetch Sanchez for torture, Nick is moved to admit his own guilt while repudiating Sanchez, who is therefore allowed to leave. Oil is poured on the floor and set alight to pen Nick and LaCroix behind flames; and, when they manage to pass, they are forced back by the jewelled cross carried by the Inquisitor. However, Sanchez returns and knocks the other man out in order to help his saviours also escape. Origin of the Spanish Inquisition The term "Inquisition" can refer to any one of several institutions charged with trying and convicting heretics (or other offenders against canon law) within the Roman Catholic Church. As an ecclesiastical tribunal, the Inquisition had jurisdiction only over baptized Christians. It worked in large part to ensure the orthodoxy of recent converts. There were a number of historical expurgation movements against heresy, one of which was the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition was motivated in part by the multi-religious nature of Spanish society following the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors, who were Muslim. However, the reconquest did not result in the full expulsion of Muslims from Spain, but instead yielded a multi-religious society made up of Catholics, Jews and Muslims. In particular, Granada, in the south, remained under Moorish control until 1492; and large cities, especially Seville, Valladolid, and Barcelona, had large Jewish populations centered in Juderías. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, there was a wave of anti-Judaism in some parts of Spain. One of the consequences of these disturbances was the mass conversion of Jews. Before this date, conversions were rare and tended to be motivated more for social rather than religious reasons. But from the fifteenth century, a new social group appeared: conversos. By converting, Jews could not only escape eventual persecution, but also obtain entry into many offices and posts that were being prohibited to Jews through new, more strict regulations. Many conversos attained important positions in 15th century Spain. But converting was a hard long process involving many crucial steps and could not be done overnight. They were distrusted by Jews and Christians alike. During Queen Isabel's stay in Seville (1477–78), Alonso de Hojeda, a Dominican from Seville, convinced her of the existence of Crypto-Judaism among Andalusian conversos. A report was produced at royal request, and corroborated this assertion. The monarchs decided to introduce the Inquisition to Castile to uncover and do away with false converts. By 1509, the Inquisition had become the only institution that held authority across all the realms of the Spanish monarchy, and, in all of them, a useful mechanism at the service of the crown. Targets of the Inquisition The Inquisition was extremely active between 1480 and 1530. Different sources give different estimates of the number of trials and executions in this period. Henry Kamen estimates about two thousand people were executed, based on the documentation of the Autos de Fé. The great majority of people who died in this period were conversos of Jewish origin—over ninety percent. From 1531 to 1560, however, the percentage of conversos among the Inquisition trials dropped to three percent of the total. The Inquisition also targeted the moriscos, who were converts to Catholicism from Islam. These were mostly concentrated in the south. Many of them had been forcibly baptized, and were suspected of practicing Islam in secret. Nevertheless, in the first half of the sixteenth century, they were treated with a fair degree of tolerance. However, after a revolt in Granada (1568–1570) was harshly suppressed, the Inquisition turned its attention upon the moriscos; and morisco cases became predominant in the tribunals. Despite much popular myth about the Inquisition relating to Protestantism, it dealt with very few cases involving actual Protestants, as there were so few in Spain. About a hundred people in Spain were found to be Protestants and turned over to the secular authorities for execution in the 1560s; and, in the last decades of the century, an additional couple of hundred people were accused of being followers of Luther. Disrespect to church images and eating meat on forbidden days were taken as signs of heresy. However, as one manifestation of the Counter-Reformation, the Spanish Inquisition worked actively to impede the diffusion of heretical ideas in Spain by producing "Indexes" of prohibited books, including those promulgating Protestant doctrine. Such lists of prohibited books were common in Europe. They included an enormous number of books of all types, though special attention was dedicated to religious works, particularly vernacular translations of the bible. Included in the Indexes, at one point, were many of the great works of Spanish literature. Although the Inquisition was created to halt the advance of heresy, it also occupied itself with a wide variety of offences that could only indirectly be related to religious heterodoxy. In the 49,092 trials from the period 1560–1700 that were registered in the archive of the Suprema, there appear the following: judaizantes (5,007); moriscos (11,311); Lutherans (3,499); alumbrados (another heretic group) (149); superstitions (3,750); heretical propositions (14,319); bigamy (2,790); solicitation (1,241); offences against the Holy Office of the Inquisition (3,954); miscellaneous (2,575). This demonstrates that professing Catholics could also be targeted for various reasons. The category "superstitions" includes trials related to witchcraft. The witch-hunt in Spain had much less intensity than in other European countries. One remarkable case was that of Logroño, in which the witches of Zugarramurdi in Navarre were persecuted: six people were burned, and another five burned in effigy. In general, nevertheless, the Inquisition maintained a sceptical attitude towards cases of witchcraft, considering it as a mere superstition without any basis. Organization The Inquisitor General presided over the Council of the Supreme and General Inquisition (generally abbreviated as "Council of the Suprema"), which was made up of six members named directly by the crown. Over time, the authority of the Suprema grew at the expense of the power of the Inquisitor General. It met every morning, save for holidays, and for two hours in the afternoon on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The morning sessions were devoted to questions of faith, while the afternoons were reserved for cases of sodomy, bigamy, and witchcraft. Below the Suprema were the different tribunals of the Inquisition, which were initially itinerant, installing themselves wherever they were necessary to combat heresy. Later on, they became established in fixed locations. In the first phase, numerous tribunals were established; but the period after 1495 saw a marked tendency towards centralization. Each of the tribunals included two inquisitors, a calificador, an alguacil (bailiff), and a fiscal (prosecutor). The inquisitors did not typically remain in the position for a long time: for the Court of Valencia, for example, the average tenure in the position was about two years. Most were priests who were not members of religious orders. They had a university education, preferably in law. The calificadores were generally theologians; it fell to them to determine if the defendant's conduct constituted a crime against the faith. The alguacil was responsible for detaining and jailing the defendant. The court had, in addition, three secretaries: the notario de secuestros (Notary of Property), who registered the goods of the accused at the moment of his detention; the notario del secreto (Notary of the Secreto), who recorded the testimony of the defendant and the witnesses; and the escribano general (General Notary), general secretary of the court. One of the most striking aspects of the organization of the Inquisition was its form of financing. Devoid its own budget, the Inquisition depended exclusively on the confiscation of the goods of the denounced. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of those prosecuted were rich men. Methods of Operation When the Inquisition arrived in a city, the first step was the Edict of Grace. Following the Sunday mass, the Inquisitor would proceed to read the edict: it explained possible heresies and encouraged all the congregation to come to the tribunals of the Inquisition to "relieve their consciences". All of the self-incriminated who presented themselves within a period of grace (approximately one month) were offered the possibility of reconciliation with the Church without severe punishment. This was effective, and many people voluntarily presented themselves to the Inquisition. However, self-incrimination was not sufficient, one also had to accuse all one's accomplices. As a result, the Inquisition had an unending supply of informants. Denunciations were anonymous, and the defendant had no way of knowing the identity of their accusers. False denunciations were frequent, resulting from envy or personal resentments. Many denunciations were for insignificant reasons. The Inquisition stimulated fear and distrust among neighbours, and denunciations among relatives were not uncommon. After a denunciation, the case was examined by the calificadores (qualifiers), who had to determine if there was heresy involved. In theory, this was then followed by detention of the accused. In practice, however, many were detained in preventive custody. Lengthy incarceration was common. It might be as much as two years before the calificadores examined the case. The entire process was undertaken with the utmost secrecy. The accused were not told about the accusations that were levied against them. Months, or even years could pass without their being informed why they were imprisoned. In order to interrogate the accused, the Inquisition made use of torture, but not in a systematic way. It was applied mainly against those suspected of Judaism and Protestantism. The methods of torture most used by the Inquisition were garrucha (strappado), toca (a form of waterboarding), and the potro (the rack). It should be noted that some of the torture methods attributed to the Spanish Inquisition, such as thumbscrews and the Iron Maiden, were actually never used by them. A defense counsel was assigned to the defendant; but this was a member of the tribunal itself, whose role was simply to advise the defendant and to encourage them to speak the truth. In order to defend themselves, the accused had two possibilities: abonos (to find favourable witnesses) or tachas (to demonstrate that the witnesses of accusers were not trustworthy). Autos de Fe The autos de fe (acts of faith) were required of everyone who was convicted. They solemnized the person's return to the Church, or their punishment as an impenitent heretic. The auto de fe eventually became a baroque spectacle, with staging meticulously calculated to cause the greatest effect among the spectators. Auto de Fes were essentially religious in nature. They involved a Catholic Mass, prayer, a public procession of those found guilty, and a reading of their sentences. It should be noted that they did not involve torture or burning at the stake. Torture was part of interrogation, and was not administered after the trial concluded; and executions were always held after and separate from the auto de fe. Sentencing The results of the trial could be the following: * The defendant could be acquitted. In actual practice, acquittals were very rare. * The process could be suspended, in which case the defendant went free, although under suspicion, and with the threat that the process could be continued at any time. Suspension was a form of acquittal without admitting specifically that the accusation had been erroneous. * The defendant could be penanced. Considered guilty, they had to abjure their crimes publicly, and were condemned to some form of punishment, such as the sambenito (penitential garb), exile, fines, or sentence to the galleys. * The defendant could be reconciled. In addition to the public ceremony in which the condemned was reconciled with the Catholic Church, they received more severe punishment, such as whipping, a long sentence to jail or the galleys, or the confiscation of all property. * The defendant could be relaxed to the secular arm, which implied burning at the stake. This penalty was frequently applied to impenitent heretics and those who had relapsed. Execution was public. If the condemned repented, they were garroted before the body was given to the flames. If not, they were burned alive. ::Adapted from the Wikipedia article on the Spanish Inquisition. Category:Historical Background